A Survey of the Uses and Abuses of the Prairie Elevator by Roy Cullimore

This is a humor-fantasy book consisting of 102 captioned cartoons relating to highly improbable uses that the prairie grain elevators have been subjected to. The traditional wooden grain elevator is still a common sight across the North American prairies, so much so that artists from this region frequently make elevators a central theme in their works. Little else has however been done to record the history of these elevators. To compensate for this, this book takes a light-hearted look at the roles elevators may have played during their historical development from Roman times through to their uses in war, the home and in sport along with some of the local mythology which has developed over the years.

The book attempts to build up a ficticious history of the elevator in keeping with its status as a common object across the prairies not recognised as indeed having a history! The author therefore has developed a history based upon imagined and highly improbable ocurrences. As a result, the elevator is depoicted first arriving in North America in the Roman era, and later being sent on rafts to feed the hungry natives on Easter Island. Elevators participated in both wars in many capacities recorded here. Perhaps the most outstanding was the use of elevators laying upon their side to form aircraft carrier decks for the training of the fleet air arm. Later, these same elevators protected the prairies from posssible zeppellikn raids. With the advance of high-technology, elevators have also found a place in the home, sport and fighting crime.

No book on elevators would be complete without some reference to the serious pests which live there (many never reported to the public for fear of causing panic). Even Biggles’ crouching bison are listed for the first time ever.